


I Love Rock & Soul

by attackofthezee (noxlunate)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Fluff, Librarian Bucky Barnes, M/M, Magical Rock, Mutual Pining, Occupational Accuracy Is Not A Concern Here I'm Sorry, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24060055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxlunate/pseuds/attackofthezee
Summary: “What’s the prognosis?” Bucky asks, his shoulder pressed lightly against Steve’s. The touch is grounding, a stark difference from the couple times they tried to separate before Wanda got there and Steve had ended up lightheaded and halfway to a panic attack.Wanda stands up a little straighter, brushing her hands against the multiple layers of fabric that comprise her skirt. “Congratulations gentlemen, you managed to bind your souls.”Or sometimes you touch a rock and end up soul bound to your best friend who you've been pining over for years.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 48
Kudos: 537
Collections: dragon’s podfic requests





	I Love Rock & Soul

**Author's Note:**

> The title is [crinklefries](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crinklefries/pseuds/crinklefries) fault
> 
> According to my google doc this was started for a "Librarian Bucky" bingo square. Was bingo was it for?? I don't know, because I promptly lost my ability to write for 9 months or so. Anyway, I'm BACK BABIES, here with a ridiculous oneshot. Hope you enjoy!

Steve has done  _ everything  _ right. 

He graduated highschool with honors, went to a good college, got a degree in a field he didn’t hate, went and got a fucking masters in archeology, and even managed to land a decent job that he doesn’t hate with the fiery passion of a thousand raging infernos. Sure, the benefits aren’t that great and explaining to his mother’s well meaning friends what exactly he does as a curator for a local historical society isn’t his favorite activity in the world, but it’s a good lot in life and most importantly, Steve enjoys it.

So really, Steve has done everything right. Which means he has no explanation for why he goes and- with absolutely no precautions-  _ touches _ the mysterious looking artifact that Bucky had called him to come look at when it appeared mysteriously in one of the more infrequently used rooms in the library. 

“Where’d it come from?” Steve asks again as he leans in a little closer to the object on the table. Beside him, Bucky is doing the same thing. 

“I told you, no fucking clue. Nat says she’s not getting near it though because it has an, and I quote, ‘ominous energy’ and I figured you’d think it was interesting,” Bucky says, and Steve can feel him shrug where their shoulders are touching. 

“I think it says something,” Steve says, and then, without thinking, he reaches forward and brushes at the dust and dirt and  _ who knows what _ that’s accumulated on the thing so that he can get a better look. 

Which is when, with a bright flash of light and a sound that leaves Steve’s eardrums ringing after, everything goes to absolute hell. 

He blinks his eyes open to see a blur of red above him. 

“You absolute fucking idiots,” The blur of red says, sounding much more judgmental than Steve’s now aching head can handle at this moment in time. 

“Oh come off it, it was just a weird looking rock. We couldn’t have known it was going to do-  _ whatever _ that was,” Bucky’s voice sounds muffled and as Steve takes further stock of his body he realizes that’s because it’s coming from somewhere near the vicinity of Steve’s armpit. Oh good, so they both ended up on the ground together. That’s good. That’s nice. 

Steve pats at Bucky’s hair absently and then his glasses are being slid back onto his face by Natasha and he’s able to see the full force of her judgmental eyebrows, albeit with a crack down the middle of one eye. Goddamit, he’s going to have to get new glasses.  _ Again.  _

“Can we save the judgement for when my head doesn’t feel like it was cracked like an egg?” Steve asks.

“No,” Natasha says, like the absolute worst friend that she is, and then, like an even worse friend, she starts to pull Steve to a standing position, “Come on, up and at ‘em.” 

Bucky rolls away just enough that Steve can follow Natasha’s lead and pull himself upright. The whole world seems to swim around Steve, a dizzy spell unlike any he’s experienced so far. He stumbles a step and the whole world seems like it’s trying to vibrate apart, an overwhelming buzz under his skin- everything is wrong suddenly and he doesn’t know  _ why _ \- just that the world is suddenly falling apart and-

And then Bucky’s hands are wrapped around his arms, keeping him from falling and it  _ stops.  _

“Well that was fucking  _ weird,”  _ Bucky says while Steve is doing his best to not fall face first into Bucky’s soft, sage green sweater covered chest. 

Natasha looks between them and the object on the table and then with a sense of finality says “I’m getting Wanda.” 

📚

Steve had met Wanda when he was knee deep in his masters, Wanda was a not-so-perky undergrad, and they were both equally as strung out on coffee and practically living in the university’s library. Nowadays they still seem to live on coffee,  _ and _ still seem to frequent the library, albeit a different one, though for Steve the latter has more to do with seeing Bucky and the former the fact that he’s reached the age where he thinks caffeine might be the only thing that keeps him functioning at even the bare minimum. 

Wanda, however, is apparently supremely useful in these sorts of situations because she takes one look at Steve and Bucky and another look at the table that Steve, Bucky, and Natasha are all avoiding and then sighs the sort of beleaguered sigh that Steve has gotten used to hearing from various sources in his three odd decades of life. 

“You’re an idiot, Rogers,” Wanda says, tugging a pair of rubber gloves on and then inspecting the object on the table with a keen eye. He’s sure  _ she’ll  _ know what she’s looking at. Wanda’s field involves  _ something  _ to do with occult studies that Steve doesn’t ask a lot of questions about because frankly, there are things in this world that he’s learned he really doesn’t need to know. Learning Wanda is an  _ actual _ witch was enough, and frankly, there are times he doesn’t even believe  _ that  _ despite having seen the evidence in person. 

“What’s the prognosis?” Bucky asks, his shoulder pressed lightly against Steve’s. The touch is grounding, a stark difference from the couple times they tried to separate before Wanda got there and Steve had ended up lightheaded and halfway to a panic attack. 

Wanda stands up a little straighter, brushing her hands against the multiple layers of fabric that comprise her skirt. “Congratulations gentlemen, you managed to bind your souls.” 

📚

“We did  _ what?”  _ Steve asks into the silence that follows Wanda’s statement. 

“You bonded your souls together,” Wanda says, like maybe they just hadn’t heard her correctly the first time. 

“Okay. Yeah. Sure. Great,” Bucky says, and then, “But what the fuck does that  _ mean?”  _

“Well, it means your souls are bound. It means-” Wanda stops short and then continues a little more severely, “It means you’re idiots is what it means.” 

Which is not an explanation necessarily, but in this case is absolutely fair. 

“You’re connected. You’ll need to stay close to each other,” Wanda continues, thankfully before Bucky can ask what she  _ means  _ again, “most likely touching for the first little while, and you might feel a little bit of whatever the other is feeling. It depends. There’s about a million different ways these bonds can work. You touched a weird rock you shouldn’t have touched. It’s magic, it’s not exactly an exact science.” 

“Can you-” Bucky pauses, his brain clearly working over the whole  _ magic  _ thing the way it always does when Wanda makes him recognize that  _ yes _ , magic is in fact real and  _ yes, _ Wanda is in fact a witch, and  _ yes _ , she did in fact put them in a weird time loop for like a week last year, “-magic it away?” 

“No. At least,  _ I  _ can’t. Or don’t know how. I have a ...colleague who knows a little more about this type of thing than I do who might be able to help.” There’s a slight pinched quality to her mouth that leads Steve to believe that maybe Wanda’s colleague is slightly more trouble than he is help. 

📚

According to Wanda her colleague will be there Wednesday. Unfortunately, that means that Steve and Bucky have Friday, all of the weekend, and the beginning of the week to deal with their ...condition before there’s any hope of getting it fixed. 

They discover relatively quickly that touching is necessary, though they can go brief, albeit uncomfortable, periods of time without it as long as they stay close. This is helpful for the required parts of living, like showering and using the bathroom, but not so helpful for things like  _ work,  _ or Steve not dying inside over the fact that he spends the first night with the back of his hand pressed against Bucky’s, trying not to let on how much he  _ enjoys  _ it. 

And okay, it’s not like Steve’s been hopelessly and secretly in love with his best friend for years now and so he can’t handle a whole lot of forced closeness with the guy, but also that’s exactly the case and Steve is two days into the whole thing and  _ dying.  _

Sunday’s the worst however, because Sunday is traditionally the day he and Bucky go have dinner with the Barnes Brood. It started years ago when Steve was a wreck of a human being, strung out from attempting to muddle his way through college while working two jobs and planning a funeral for his mother. Winifred Barnes swooped in to feed him and make him sleep for more than twenty minutes at a time and now Sunday dinners are sacred. And maybe he’s exaggerating a little in thinking of this as  _ the worst,  _ but he just thinks the sacred dinner would be  _ slightly  _ more enjoyable if Steve hadn’t accidentally touched a dumb rock and gotten Bucky’s soul linked to his own.

Winifred is, of course, the first to notice. Bucky and Steve have been there a half hour, lingering around the kitchen island, grazing on gnoshes with their arms linked together when Winifred looks them up and down with shrewd eyes. She doesn’t say anything but Steve knows. Steve can  _ feel it.  _ She’s noticed something is up and the question (and possible  _ -definite- _ teasing) is coming. 

The question comes, as Steve knew it eventually would, directly after Bucky goes to the bathroom and Steve gets to linger awkwardly directly outside the door, practically vibrating with the tension of the stretched magical bond. As soon as Bucky returns their hands are clasped together, arms pressed together in an effort to erase the aching  _ bad-wrong  _ feeling that being apart gives now. 

“So, what’s all this?” Winifred asks, eyeing the both of them up and down, her eyes lingering on their twined fingers. 

Steve’s heart is steadily slowing as Bucky rubs his thumb over Steve’s wrist and it’s so fucking  _ ridiculous  _ the way a little bond created by some magical rock is effecting him. Steve kind of hopes he’s not the only one going through a whirlwind here. 

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Ma.” Bucky says. 

They do, in fact tell her. And she does, in fact, believe them. All in all, it goes rather something like this: 

Bucky says, “Well, see, we accidentally got ourselves a magical soul bond.” 

Winifred says, “Excuse me, you did  _ what?”  _

Steve says, “It’s not his fault, not really. I shouldn’t have touched it.” 

To which Winifred says, “Oh Steven, don’t go taking all the blame. I have a feeling these things take two, darling,” before much less gently addressing her son with “Explain.” 

So, Bucky does. Steve sits next to him, their ankles crossed under the table and Steve using his free hand to eat broccoli dipped in Winifred’s homemade “Fiesta Ranch” while Bucky explains exactly what happened and Winifred asks disbelieving questions like “What do you mean you’re friends with an  _ actual  _ witch and you didn’t tell me?” and “What do you mean there was a  _ time loop, James Buchanan Barnes?”  _ and Steve watches the light slowly leave Bucky’s eyes. 

Steve would feel sympathetic, but, well, Bucky’s soul is currently connected to Steve’s very stubborn soul so it’s not like it can be completely sucked away by the force of Winifred’s questions. Plus he’s seen this song and dance before and it almost always ends well, with no actual death and Winifred Barnes feeding her son a slice of cake. He thinks Bucky will be fine.

Though he does give his hand a reassuring little squeeze to signify his solidarity.

📚 

Less than an hour later, the Barnes Dinner commences in its entire glory and Becca aims her sharp gaze at Steve while Bucky is distracted talking to his dad across the table and says, “So you mystically married my brother, huh?” 

Steve chokes on a bite of brisket and Bucky absentmindedly pats at his back while answering some question about a book he and his dad are apparently reading together. 

Steve doesn’t want to say the Barnes family is freakishly connected, but Bucky and Becca have been moved out of the house for over a decade and the whole family still goes on yearly vacations to Disney World (that Steve is required to come along on, of course), they still get together  _ at least  _ once a week for dinner, and Bucky and his dad have a  _ book club.  _

“Becca- Eavesdropping is- We didn’t- You’re not supposed to- I’m not  _ mystically married  _ to your brother,  _ jesus.”  _

“Mystical soul bond from a strange rock, mystical marriage, tomato, tomato,” Becca says with a vague wave of her hand. 

“ _ No,  _ not tomato,  _ tomato,”  _ Steve insists, voice dropped low and mindful of the fact that  _ yes,  _ the Barnes are many in number and loud enough that it shows, and  _ yes,  _ Bucky is currently absorbed in discussing a book that’s coming out soon that he and his dad are very excited about, but they  _ are  _ still at a table surrounded by nosey Barneses. “They’re very different things,  _ Becca.”  _

“ _ They’re very different things, Becca _ ,” Becca’s imitation of Steve is  _ terrible,  _ and also Steve’s pretty sure that as fully grown adults they are well past this stage in their lives, but fortunately/unfortunately for Steve being Bucky’s best friend since their playground days means that he  _ also  _ inherited Bucky’s Younger By Exactly 16 Minutes Sister as his own. 

“You’re a  _ lawyer,”  _ Steve says, and the only thing keeping him from dropping his head onto the worn wood table with a beleaguered sigh is the fact that he has a plate of food in front of him. 

“And you’re  _ mystically married.”  _ Becca snipes back before putting on her most innocent expression and saying, “I hope when you have the ceremony it’s a winter wedding. It’d be so fitting.” 

📚

The next couple days pass as well as they can with Steve making an excuse to switch to work from home as much as possible and just sort of tagging along to the library with Bucky. He doesn’t think about Becca claiming he and Bucky are in some sort of mystical magical  _ marriage  _ and he  _ especially _ doesn’t think about how there’s a small part of him that wishes that were  _ true.  _ And mostly, the not thinking about it has kept him from dying inside internally, and also from throwing himself into a panic attack when he’d realized this morning that he can  _ feel  _ Bucky. 

As in Bucky’s emotions. As in this is a two way street where they can  _ feel  _ a low level hum of whatever the other is feeling and Steve had been too caught up in his internal panic about it all the last few days to even notice that some of the panic wasn’t even  _ his.  _

On the bright side, today is the day. Today is the day they might figure out how to fix this. 

Today is the day that Wanda’s colleague arrives.

Wanda’s colleague, Loki, appears absolutely unimpressed when Steve and Bucky give him a rundown of what exactly occurred and what’s happened in the few days after. 

He’s sprawled out in a rolling chair in one of the smaller rooms, spinning the chair back and forth as he jots down what is supposed to be notes on the situation but that Steve is 99% sure are really just disparagements to their character. 

“Morons,” Loki says, tapping his pen against his notebook. 

“ _ That’s what I said,”  _ Wanda says, triumphant at someone else confirming what she believes to be their sheer and utter idiocy when faced with mystical nonsense. 

Steve’s suddenly filled with a deep well of conviction that he never wants to meet any more of Wanda’s colleagues. 

“Look, I get it,” Bucky says, “Rogers here touched a thing he wasn’t supposed to and we’re the biggest idiots on the planet, yada yada. Can you fix it or what?” 

Loki spins his chair in a way that somehow feels distinctly like an eyeroll. “Can I fix it?  _ Can  _ I fix it? Can  _ I  _ fix it?  _ Of course  _ I can fix it.”

“Then  _ fix it.”  _ Even if Steve couldn’t feel Bucky’s annoyance like an unpleasant buzz at the back of his head, he’d be able to tell by his voice. 

“Can’t right now,” Loki says sort of vaguely and Steve watches a vein in Bucky’s forehead rise to prominence. Steve’s not sure what a rage-fueled heart attack would do to him with their current connection, but he’s sure it wouldn’t be  _ good.  _

“But you just said-” 

“I know what I said, Barnes. If you’d paid attention you would have heard the  _ right now  _ part of that sentence implying that I can pull off this extremely complex spell that will sever the bond your souls have made, but I can’t do it  _ now.”  _

Steve grabs Bucky’s hand in an attempt to reel him in from lunging and strangling Loki. It’s a strange role reversal, and for a moment he wonders if maybe the whole  _ soulbond  _ thing has anything to do with it all. Though, considering this affects Steve and he’s seen Bucky go to bat for Steve for significantly less, maybe it doesn’t. 

“When can you do it?” Steve asks. 

“The moon has to be right-” 

“The  _ moon?”  _

“I’ll consult my calendar and get back to you,” Loki says breezily, and then he’s getting up out of his chair and gliding out of the room. Or at least he seems to be attempting to glide, only interrupted by the fact that he seems to stumble over nothing, rights himself and smooths out his jacket with a “Meant to do that,” before he disappears entirely. 

“I hate him,” Bucky says, sincerely. 

“He grows on you,” Wanda says, not quite sincerely. 

📚

“So,” Steve says late that night, his arm pressed against Bucky’s and his eyes fixed on the ceiling. He’s known Bucky for what feels like his entire life, and has certainly shared a bed with him before, yet it feels different somehow with whatever mystical connection they’ve gained thrumming between them. 

He feels like he can’t look too closely at Bucky or else all his feelings will bubble to the surface and spill across the spot where their souls are linked. 

“So?” Bucky asks, bumping his shoulder into Steve’s and prompting him to go on. 

“You think he’ll manage to actually fix this?” Steve asks finally.

“Wanda vouched for him, and I believe Wanda. So yeah, I guess. If he doesn’t though, it’s not like this is the worst thing to ever happen to us. It's not like we don’t already spend most our time together anyway Steve.” There’s something a little strange in Bucky’s tone and a part of Steve wants to try to analyze it, to see if he can gleam anything about it through their strange bond, but another is convinced that he’s making it all up and he shouldn’t be reading anything into this.

“Buck, we can’t shower without the other one sitting right outside the bathtub without experiencing  _ actual _ pain. This isn’t exactly a fun time.” 

“Okay, sure, but bright side- I get all my best ideas in the shower and this way I can just yell them at you so I don’t forget. See, there’s a silver lining in everything.” Bucky says with the sort of grin that used to make girls (and Steve, if he’s honest) melt in high school. 

Steve snorts and kicks lazily at Bucky’s calf beneath the blankets, “Have I ever told you you’re an idiot?” 

“Only about a million times since we were six,” Bucky answers, kicking back at Steve. 

📚

A full three weeks into having their souls bound magically by a strange, magical  _ rock _ in the library Bucky and Steve seem to have developed a routine. 

To be entirely fair, it’s not like it’s all  _ that  _ different than usual. They’ve been living out of each other’s pockets practically since they met as children. They see each other nearly every day, even when there’s not forced proximity at play. So it shouldn’t feel strange that they’ve made a routine out of this.

And  _ yet. _

And yet it does. 

It feels strange how  _ right  _ it feels for Steve to fall asleep on the other side of Bucky’s bed while Bucky flicks through a book by the dim light of the lamp on his bedside table. It feels strange how right it feels to end up migrating across the bed in his sleep until he wakes up tangled up with Bucky. It feels strange how  _ right  _ it feels to lean against the counter gulping down his first cup of coffee while Bucky hums like a disgusting morning person and makes breakfast. 

The strangeness lies in how it  _ doesn’t  _ feel strange. In the way it makes Steve dread the end of this, even as he’s impatient for it to be over. 

God, he’s  _ so screwed.  _

📚

“How long til your friend fixes this?” Bucky asks Wanda when it’s been 24 days since Steve went and touched a mystical artifact and got their souls bound together. Steve, for his part, keeps his nose buried in his work and pretends like he’s not waiting with bated breath for Wanda’s answer. 

“Not sure. He started some sort of international incident I guess, so he’s been incommunicado while his brother helps him fix it. I’m sure he’ll call when it gets resolved.” Wanda says, perched on top of the checkout desk while Bucky pretends to do something library-y on the computer but is actually just scrolling through twitter and tapping his foot absently against Steve’s ankle.

“I thought you said this guy was reliable?” 

“I never said he was  _ reliable.  _ I said he would fix this. There’s a difference. He’s a giant flake honestly, but I have something he wants so he’ll be back.” Wanda sounds much less concerned than Steve thinks she should. He’s beginning to suspect that everyone is getting even more used to this than Steve and Bucky themselves are. 

“Do I want to know what you have that he wants?” Bucky asks, sounding like maybe he dreads the answer.

“I’m guessing not.”

Before Bucky can respond to Wanda there’s a small child approaching the counter with a stack of books that Steve swears is nearly as tall as the kid and Bucky ends up distracted entirely from their current problem. 

Steve does  _ not _ watch dreamily as Bucky lights up, asking the kid questions about what they’re reading as he checks them out. He really doesn’t, no matter what Wanda’s eyebrows imply.

📚

Loki gives them all of a day’s notice. Steve gets the text while they’re eating dinner- the mac and cheese that Bucky makes with the dumb vegan cheese especially for Steve purely so that he doesn’t complain about how itchy he is after eating the real stuff.

“It’s tomorrow night,” Steve says, fiddling with his phone, suddenly feeling a lot less hungry than he had just minutes before. 

“Huh?” Bucky’s mouth is half full of chewed up noodles and fake cheese product, his hair falling messily from the haphazard bun he’d thrown it into when they got home and Steve  _ aches  _ for a second with all the things he feels for him. 

  
  
  


“Wanda texted. Loki’s back and he’s ready to break the bond tomorrow night.” 

The rest of the night is more subdued than usual. 

They get ready for bed side by side like they have for the last few weeks and then settle into Bucky’s bed. 

Everything’s quiet except for the sound of Steve texting his boss that he’ll be able to return from work from home next week and the rustle of Bucky turning the pages of his book. 

It feels domestic. 

It feels like the end.

Eventually Bucky sets his book aside, turns off the light and very pointedly turns over to face Steve, prompting Steve to do the same.

“Excited to get back to your apartment?” Bucky asks after a long moment where they just sort of  _ look  _ at each other. 

“Oh yeah. I’m real excited to get back to the four flights of stairs I get to climb once a week when the elevator inevitably goes out and my neighbor who plays Finnish Death Metal at 2 am.” 

Bucky snorts and takes one of Steve’s hands. “I can tell that your sarcasm is only to mask the pain of leaving me,” Bucky says with a very fake, very serious look. 

Steve makes an offended noise and kicks half heartedly at Bucky’s ankle, causing Bucky’s serious look to transform into a grin and then they’re just laying there, grinning at each other in the dark. 

And Steve can’t help himself. He does what he’s wanted to do for years and kisses him. 

The bond lights up with a sort of fizzing feeling, happy like champagne on new years as Bucky kisses him back. And then it’s gone as he pulls back, something conflicted in his expression, “Steve- I-” 

“Right. It’s the bond,” Steve rushes to fill the gap, “It’s just the bond. I get it, I do.” 

There’s something cracking inside of him, and he can feel that part of him where Steve ends and Bucky begins, threads that seem tangled together by the magic that connected them, and he makes sure there’s something there between it. 

“Goodnight, Buck,” He says, before Bucky can say anything else and rolls over in the bed they’ve been sharing for weeks now.

This will all be over in the morning. 

📚

📚

📚

“What’s made you such a sourpuss?” Natasha asks at the bar, a week after Loki unbound them and Steve and Bucky parted ways to ‘get some space.’

“I’m firing you as my best friend,” Steve says, not at all sullen as he nurses his beer and his not at all tender emotions. They’re not  _ tender.  _ It’s just that everything’s felt a little raw since Loki’s spell, like no longer having the bond has left his nerves exposed. 

“Mmmh, I’m afraid I’ve got tenure so you can’t,” Natasha says, and then seriously, “Maybe you should just talk to him. Tell him how you feel instead of pining away until you’re an old spinster.” 

“Can’t. We’re giving each other space.” 

“Right. Right. Because you two not being overly attached to each other isn’t a sign of the end times or anything. Should I be watching for swarms of locusts? The East River to turn to blood? Hail? Boils?” 

“We’re fine. It’s not the end times. We just thought it would be better to have some space after spending every waking moment together.” 

“Really? Did you both think that? Or did  _ you _ think  _ Bucky _ thought that so you’re being a martyr? No one likes a martyr Steve.” 

“I feel like Christianity as a whole would argue with you on that.” 

📚

When Steve gets home from work there’s a package in front of his door. 

_ ‘Thought you might want to check it out for yourself finally. XO Wanda’  _ reads the note attached to the box and when Steve gets it into his apartment and gets it open he sees the thing that started this whole mess. 

He sets the box down and grabs his phone. 

“Only boomers make actual phone calls these days, Steve,” Wanda says as soon as she picks up. 

“One, I’m sure that’s wrong. I mean, just statistically it has to be,” Steve starts, “and two, why did you send me  _ it _ ? Do you  _ want  _ me to go binding my soul to someone again?” 

“Don’t let anyone into your apartment while you look at it and you’ll be  _ fine,”  _ Wanda says, sounding awfully blase about the state of Steve’s soul. 

“I don’t think-” 

“Shit. Gotta go, Steve. Talk to you later,” Wanda interrupts, and hangs up, cutting off the sound of crashing and swearing in the background. 

Steve’s left staring at what in any other situation would seem like a totally innocuous lump of rock. 

“Well, I guess it’s just you and me pal.”

Steve spends the rest of the night studiously ignoring the damn artifact that went and got him stuck to Bucky for over a month, leaving him with even more complicated and aching feelings for his best friend than he’d had before. 

He spends the next three days ignoring it actually, until finally he breaks and starts the careful process of examining it. 

It’s not going to tell him anything is the thing. It’s not like this thing is going to say  **_‘BEWARE. DO NOT TOUCH OR ELSE IT WILL BIND YOUR SOUL WITH YOUR BEST FRIEND’S’_ ** in ancient Aramaic or some shit. And even if it  _ does  _ it won’t explain a damn thing about why Steve feels like such shit emotionally now that it’s over. 

It turns out Steve’s a little bit wrong. It’s not Aramaic, but Norse, and it doesn’t exactly spell out a warning rather than say something that after way too much research for a guy who has  _ very little  _ knowledge of Norse that basically amounts to “a test for those who wish to be wed” which is… interesting. 

So basically the last month of Steve’s life has been some magical test for people who want to get  _ married.  _

…

For people in love. 

…

For people who love each other. 

…

_ Oh.  _

📚

📚

📚

This isn’t the first time that Steve’s used his key for Bucky’s apartment and barged in without giving warning and it certainly won’t be the last. 

Or at least he hopes it won’t be the last. 

If this whole thing turns into a disaster it might be. 

When he barges in Bucky’s there, on the couch in his biggest Moping Hoodie, watching what sounds suspiciously like Pretty Woman on his laptop. 

“You kissed me back,” Steve says, or rather gasps, considering he just ran up far too many flights of stairs to get to Bucky’s apartment. 

“Wha-” Bucky shuts his laptop and sets it on the coffee table, staring at Steve like he’s insane. Which,  _ fair. _

“When we kissed that night. It wasn’t the bond.” 

“Steve-” 

“It wasn’t, was it?” Steve asks, and he doesn’t  _ think  _ he sounds desperate, but he certainly feels it. 

“No. Of course it wasn’t.  _ You  _ were the one who said it was the bond,” Bucky says, which  _ no,  _ Bucky had- 

Except no, Bucky hadn’t had he? Steve  _ had  _ been the one to assume that that’s what Bucky was going to say. He’d never given Bucky a chance to say whatever it was he was going to that night. 

Oh god, he’s an  _ idiot.  _ He can never breathe a word of this to anyone he knows. 

Steve, instead of responding by using his words like he probably should, goes a much more direct route and grabs Bucky by the front of his Moping Hoodie and tugs him up off the couch so that he can kiss him. 

It’s clumsy at first, but then Bucky’s arms are around him, dragging him in closer and Steve’s sinking into the kiss, letting it soothe the tangle of nerves he’s felt since they broke the bond. 

“You’re an idiot,” Bucky says when they break apart. 

“In my defense, there was magic involved,” The defense is a weak one and they both know it. “And also in my defense, I’ve been kind of in love with you for a while and that’s enough to scramble a guy’s brain, Buck.” 

“Yeah?” Bucky asks, something pleased in his tone and his lips curled into a smile that tempts Steve to kiss him again. 

So he does. 

It’s quicker this time, a brief brush of his lips over Bucky’s smiling ones before he answers. “Oh yeah. Ridiculously. Pathetically, even. I’ve been told I was pining.” 

“Oh good. It’d be terrible if I was the only one suffering all this time.” 

“We’re idiots.” Steve wants to laugh, because they  _ are.  _ They’re idiots who could have been doing this for  _ so much longer  _ if only they’d  _ said something. _

“Fools,” Bucky agrees.

📚

📚

📚

In an apartment in Bed-Stuy Wanda sits on a video call with Natasha while her brother and Clint bicker in the background. 

“Do you think it was unethical? The scheming? The lying? Not telling them what we were up to?” Wanda asks. 

“Unethical? Sure,” Natasha says, “Would literally anything else have worked at this point? Absolutely not. They’re both too stubborn.”

“Do you think it actually worked?”

“It better have. If the magical equivalent of locking them in a closet together until they work out their feelings doesn’t I don’t know what will.” Natasha says with the air of someone who has suffered greatly due to her best friends having their heads up their asses for so many years. 

“There’s always another time loop,” Wanda offers. Maybe using magical means to get one’s friends to admit they love each other is not the most _ethically_ sound method of managing this sort of thing, but desperate times really do call for desperate measures. Wanda’s been watching them swoon over each other and then insist they can’t tell the other how they feel since she was an _undergrad._

“No, no,” Natasha says quickly, “I’m sure the plan worked this time. No time loops will be necessary.” 

“Fine, fine. No more time loops,” Wanda says, “Sad that they’ll never know we made this happen though. It’d be neat to be thanked in the eventual wedding.” 

_ fin _

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment or kudos if you want! And also come yell with me on twitter if you'd like to @attackofthezee


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